46
62
Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958)
KEEL VILLAGE, ACHILL ISLAND, 1911
oil on canvas
signed lower left
18 by 20in. (45.72 by 50.80cm)
Provenance:
Private collection;
Adam’s, 28 May 2003, lot 86;
Whence purchased by the present owner
Exhibited:
‘Paintings by Mrs. Frances Baker, Grace Henry, Paul Henry, Casimir Dunin-Markiewicz and George
Russell (AE), Leinster Hall, Dublin, 16-21 October, 1911, catalogue no. 35 or 36
Literature:
Kennedy, S.B.,
Paul Henry, Paintings Drawings Illustrations
, Yale University Press, New Haven &
London, 2007, catalogue no. 342, p.162 (illustrated)
In original Waddington frame.
The form of the signature, with dots between the two words of the artist’s name and after the word Henry,
signify that this composition must have been painted shortly after the artist arrived on Achill Island in
August 1911.The village of Keel, where in his autobiography,
An Irish Portrait
(1951), he tells us he settled, is
seen from the high ground to the north-west, the long and graceful sweep of Trawmore Strand dominating
the middle distance.The scene has been rendered with remarkable economy of means, there being only
moderate impasto, but a great sense of fluidity, in the handling of the paint. As is characteristic of Henry’s
painting at this time the brushwork is rigorously descriptive of form and structure and the use of subtle
blues and greys to emphasise the recession of the landscape is a foretaste of the strong Whistlerian
influence that would soon emerge in his painting.The use of upright brushstrokes, as seen in the near
foreground, is characteristic of other Henry pictures of this time.There is an almost identical, but smaller,
composition of the same title and period to this in the Ulster Museum, Belfast. Nowadays the village of Keel
is larger, although not substantially so, so that the main thrust of the landscape can clearly be seen. Henry’s
excitement at his new-found surroundings is also evident in his rendering of the landscape.
Dr SB Kennedy
February 2013
€
50,000-
€
70,000 (£42,700-£59,800 approx.)
WHYTES
SINCE 1783
,
66
Gerard Dillon (1916-1971)
HOME WITH THE CATCH
oil on canvas
signed lower right 23 by 23½in. (58 by 58cm)
Provenance: Waddington Galleries, Dublin; Where purchased by the present ownerʼs
father
Exhibited: ʻFour Ulster Paintersʼ, Victor Waddington Galleries, Dublin, September, 1947;
ʻFour Ulster Paintersʼ, Heals Mansard Gallery, London, May to June 1948, catalogue no.
36 (a joi t exhibition with Daniel OʼNeill, George Campbell and Neville Johnson); ʻGerard
Dillon, Art and Friendship Summer Loan Exhibitionʼ, Adamʼs, Dublin, 2-26 July 2013
(travell d to Av Gallery, Clandeboye, 1-29 August 2013) catalogue no. 39
Literature: ʻGerard Dillon, Art and Friendship Su mer Loan Exhibitionʼ, Adamʼs, Dublin,
2013, catalogue no. 39, p.41 (illustrated) Ger rd Dillon was born in West Belfast in 1916
but spent much of his life in London where he earned a living as a painter and decorator.
Many of his most popul r, and important, paintings depict scenes of everyday life on the
west coast of Irel nd. He first visited the west in 1939 and became enchanted with the
landscape and the people, making them the major theme of his work throughout the
1940s and 1950s.
Home with the Catchis a estern scene where a young family make their way through the
village with their daily catch of fish. Fis were both a staple of their diet and a commodity
that they could trade.Their clothing is recognisable as the traditional dress once common
in Connemara and the Aran Islands.The womanʼs red skirt and white woollen jumper
along with the manʼs baggy woollen trousers and waistcoat and their simple leather shoes,
known as pampooti s, locate this image in a particular time and place. Stylistically similar
to Irish Peasant Children(c.1949), this work also resembles the young couple carrying fish
depicted in Dillonʼs textile work Gentle Breeze, which he hand stitched in 1952.
Recalling his first experience of the western seaboard, Dillon wrote that the west was ʻa
great strange land of wonder to the visitor from the red-brick cityʼ.1 Like many artists and
writers before him, he held a romantic view of the west as both the locus of an authentic
Irish culture and a ʻprimitiveʼ place, free from many of the restraints of wider Irish
society.Writing in 1955, he claimed that Connemara is ʻthe place for a painterʼ and
eulogising about the variety of the rugged landscape, the quality of the light and the
simplicity of daily life, concluded: ʻone could live here forever but being neither a fisherman
nor farmer, but only a painter, Iʼm forced to come back to city life to sell work – and hope
to save enough to come back to Connemaraʼ.2
Dr Riann Coulter
April 2014
1 Gerard Dillon, ʻThe Artist Speaksʼ, Envoy, 4 February, 1951, p.39.
2 Gerard Dillon, ʻDear Touristʼ, Ireland of the Welcomes, Bord Fáilte, Dublin, May/June,
1955, p.30.
3 White, James, Gerard Dillon: An Illustrated Biography, Dublin:Wolfhound Press, 1994, p.
10.
€60,000-€80,000 (£49,590-£66,120 approx.)
